


Winter Insomnia

by fireworksinthenight



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2012), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Family, Gen, Snow, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 03:18:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17014623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireworksinthenight/pseuds/fireworksinthenight
Summary: It's winter, and one turtle wanders the sewers alone.





	Winter Insomnia

**Author's Note:**

> _Winter drabble. This is my contribution to the Turtly X-mas Countdown organized by the tmnt discourse group._  
> 
> _No particular universe, and I don’t own the turtles._

It was cold, very cold. The mutant turtle child who wandered through the sewers shouldn't have been out of his lair by such weather. He should have been home with his brothers and father, asleep.

The humans living above them were awake right now, minding their own business in the gray light of a cloudy winter day. But he was alone in the underground tunnels.

The child stopped under a metal grate.

It was snowing in the outside world. The snowflakes were dancing in the draft like little specks of light. If he ignored the brown puddle it made on the sewer ground, it was a beautiful sight.

He hated it.

He had seen it in the cartoons his brothers and he loved to watch since Donnie had repaired an old TV. Children were supposed to enjoy it, to play with it, to gather it in their mittens and throw it at each other, to build snowmen and go sledding.

Oh, how he would love engaging in these activities with his brothers. Mikey would make dozens of snowturtles. Donnie would build the best sledge ever. And he would challenge Leo to an epic snowball fight.

But they were forbidden to do any of it. These activities belonged to the surface world, and they were sewer creatures.

The turtle's fists clenched. He gritted his teeth and started boxing the falling snow. For his trouble, he merely ended up drenched and even colder.

"Stupid snow," he muttered. "Stupid winter. Stupid humans. Stupid everything."

He shivered. He knew that on the very least, he should have put on his winter clothing before leaving the lair. But he hadn't wanted to wake up his sleeping brothers by rummaging through his stuff. Sharing the same room had disadvantages.

"Stupid me," he added for good measure, kicking the puddle of melted and dirty snow.

"Raphie?"

The turtle child spun, taken by surprise.

"Guys?" He asked the three other turtles facing him. "What are you doing here?"

His three brothers were all wearing old winter jackets, mittens and woolly hats.

The blue-clad one shrugged.

"I woke up and you weren't here," he said as if it explained it all.

And in a way, it did.

"And I woke up when Leo began rummaging through our winter clothes," the purple one added.

"And I woke up because I was hungry, and I saw Leo and Donnie getting dressed," the orange one finished.

"Something you obviously forgot," Donnie pointed out. "You'll catch a cold in this weather."

"Yeah, yeah," Raph muttered. He felt stupider than ever. "Whatever."

Leo rolled his eyes and opened his jacket to catch a small bunch of red clothes. He held it out to Raph.

"Why did you leave, anyway?" He asked, curious, while Raph put on his winter clothes and relished the new feeling of warmth.

"I couldn't sleep," the now red-clad turtle muttered. "I was thinking."

"Thinking about what?" Mikey asked, coming closer to his brother as if he could read the answer directly on his face.

Raph really hoped he couldn't, but he wasn't entirely sure of it. You could never know, with Mikey.

"Just… stuff. It doesn't matter."

"If you say so," Leo answered, looking at the snow falling through the metal grate with a strange expression on his face.

Raph had no name for the emotion it reflected. Maybe Donnie would have known what it was. Their brother was one step ahead of them in all things intellectual.

Although Raph had a hunch that it wasn't very different from his own feelings.

"It doesn't matter," he repeated, not convinced in the slightest but determined not to worry his brothers. "Let's go home before Splinter notice we're all gone."

The four turtles shuddered as unpleasant images of their displeased father filled their mind.

"Good idea. At least the lair is warm," Donnie added.

As Raph walked away from the metal grate, Mikey's arm around his shell and listening to Leo and Donnie's conversation – something about covering their tracks, from eventual sewer workers or from their father, he wasn't sure – he felt the bitterness in his heart recede.

He couldn't play in the snow, but he had three brothers ready to brave their father's wrath to find him and bring him back.

Maybe it was more important.


End file.
